On Thursday, parents and students spoke with CBS North Carolina’s Beairshelle Edmé about the scare. Asked about the incident, they had mixed reactions, but mostly concern about the allegations that Judah Dennis, 17, planned to bring a gun to the school.

“Absolutely, very disturbing, and in today’s time, very disturbing,” said Dewayne Brunson, the father of a Garner senior. “[It’s] disgusting. I wanted to keep her home ‘til I heard the news this morning.”

Garner senior Alyssa Crowder expressed the same sentiments, particularly about the racist slur against African-Americans found in one of the snaps.

“It’s sad that people still think like that now and that we have to worry about our safety when we come to school, and school just started. We shouldn’t have to deal with this now or ever, honestly,” she said.

Crowder said she didn’t know the teenager well, but says she didn’t see this coming.

“I don’t think a lot of people really knew him like that, but I don’t think he was known to say stuff like that,” Crowder explained.

Crowder’s brother, Aaron, said threats like this are becoming a new normal for his generation, pointing to a bomb threat he went through in middle school. But even for him, he said this was still alarming.

“I was like, ‘Wait is this a joke?’ And that’s not something to joke about,” the junior said. “And also [I was] trying to figure it out because I ain’t never seen anyone named Jacob Ellington at the school.”

Jacob Ellington was the name police say Dennis used on the app.

Other Garner parents CBS North Carolina spoke with said this was a major red flag and they’re glad Garner police caught it.

“I think we all just need to be kind to one another, basically, and that’s it and that’s what I told my kids,” said Carrie Bischof, a mother of two teenage boys at the high school.